For more than 50 years, there’s been a mystery about the Universe that the greatest minds in physics and astronomy have been unable to solve: the fact that, when we map out all of the known matter that we can see and apply the known laws of gravity, it doesn’t add up to match the … | Continue reading
Dyhia Belhabib’s journey to becoming a marine scientist began with war funerals on TV. Her hometown, on the pine-forested slopes of the Atlas Mountains in northern Algeria, lies only 60 miles from the Mediterranean Sea. But a trip to the beach was dangerous. A bitter civil war ra … | Continue reading
Art produced by or with the help of artificial intelligence is more popular than ever, from the record-breaking $432,000 auction of Obvious collective’s Portrait of Edmond Belamy to the overwhelming success of Refik Anadol’s “Unsupervised” exhibit at the MoMA. But one art-world f … | Continue reading
I kicked Election Day off by making myself a large glass of rum punch from Martha Washington’s recipe (orange juice, lemon juice, cloves, cinnamon, etc.). I did this because, for one thing, day drinking was the norm in the 1790s. Booze was especially common during election season … | Continue reading
In recent years, many organizations have realized that the journey towards real allyship and lasting societal change is not as simple as hosting one employee celebration and posting about it on social media. It’s a long and complex path, requiring a concerted and sustained effort … | Continue reading
It’s been almost 100 years since humanity first reached a revolutionary conclusion about the nature of our Universe: space itself cannot and does not remain static, but rather evolves with the passage of time. One of the most unsettling predictions of Einstein’s general relativit … | Continue reading
Over 2,500 years ago, Greek philosophers debated whether the nature of reality was impermanence or constant change. Heraclitus was the champion of change, pointing to the march of the seasons and the ebb and flow of the tides. In contrast, Parmenides, a near-contemporary of Herac … | Continue reading
Here on Earth, as well as elsewhere throughout the Universe, a tremendous variety of naturally occurring elements can be found. More than 90 species of atom — from hydrogen up through plutonium — have been detected in various environments, but astrophysically, very few events are … | Continue reading
In Aug. 19, 2021, a humpback whale named Twain whupped back. Specifically, Twain made a series of humpback whale calls known as “whups” in response to playback recordings of whups from a boat of researchers off the coast of Alaska. The whale and the playback exchanged calls 36 ti … | Continue reading
Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden. As usual, the country ranking in the annual World Happiness Report is topped by Nordic countries. This map does something extra: It shows happiness levels in their regional and global context. At a glance, we see that happiness levels are relati … | Continue reading
While curiosity is almost always the right choice, it’s often not the easy one. I find questions most effective when I work through them with another person. However, I’ve noticed some situations when staying curious is particularly hard. Call these curiosity killers. In the expe … | Continue reading
Perhaps the template for the tough manager dates back to the early days of the industrial revolution. The first factory workers had spent their lives working either as artisans or farm workers, where they had some control over either the hours or the pace at which they worked. Fa … | Continue reading
When it comes to the Standard Model of particle physics, most people incorrectly assume that it’s known, it’s correct, and that there are no more open questions about its validity. While the Standard Model has certainly withstood every challenge that’s been thrown at it by way of … | Continue reading
Roughly eight billion humans live on the planet, and each one experiences the 24 hours of the day a little differently. That amounts to 190 billion unique hours of human life lived during each rotation of the Earth. While each of us has a decent conception of how we spend our own … | Continue reading
Joe Betts-LaCroix is co-founder and CEO of longevity tech company Retro Biosciences. Under his leadership, and backed to the tune of $180 million by Sam Altman, Retro built its laboratories, at a fraction of the usual cost, from re-fitted shipping containers. The company mission … | Continue reading
The Horsehead Nebula is an iconic astronomical sight. A dark molecular cloud of neutral gas sits in front of an active star-forming region: IC 434, creating the iconic sight of the Horsehead Nebula. Located about 1300 light-years away in the constellation of Orion, the dark cloud … | Continue reading
Mars is a graveyard for explorers. Many orbiters, landers, rovers, and other mechanical critters that have either been cremated in the Red Planet’s thin atmosphere or fallen silent in the ochre, radiation-smothered sands below, right away or at the end of their technological life … | Continue reading
A recent discovery in Minnesota has unveiled a helium reservoir with astonishingly high concentrations of the gas, surpassing initial estimations and potentially opening doors for commercial extraction. Pulsar Helium, an exploration company, revealed the discovery of helium reser … | Continue reading
French researchers say they have discovered that genetic mutations aren’t necessary for cancer to develop, challenging a long-held assumption about the disease. The cause of cancer: Cancer cells start out as normal, healthy cells, but then something goes wrong — instead of doing … | Continue reading
From the ancient feasts of kings to the modern-day fast-food frenzy, meat has long been a global dietary centerpiece. As a critical source of protein and nutrients, meat (particularly beef) is a necessary staple of diets worldwide. Yet, how it and other ruminant meats such as mut … | Continue reading
In 2023, the ostensibly authoritative World Health Organization (WHO) recommended that non-sugar sweeteners “not be used as a means of achieving weight control or reducing the risk of noncommunicable diseases.” Non-sugar sweeteners are found in diet sodas, yogurts, and snack bars … | Continue reading
Is it OK to accept an opportunity presented to you, like dating someone, that a close friend has been loudly wishing for? – Anna, US A short and classic problem. It’s the tale that launched a thousand ships and brought down ancient dynasties. It’s as old as recorded history and a … | Continue reading
The internet is awash with platitudes. “Live, Laugh, Love,” “Keep Calm and Carry On,” and “Y.O.L.O.” The problem, as with any pithy quote, is that they reduce the complexities of life to Pinterest posts and souvenirs. They reduce all there is to the universe to a single mantra. N … | Continue reading
Young men are increasingly finding themselves single and struggling to meet traditional expectations. Journalist Christine Emba breaks down the masculinity crisis and what can be done to fix it. The rise of “manfluencers” like Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan reflects a new type of … | Continue reading
Compare coverage and stay informed on breaking news by subscribing through my link https://ground.news/bigthink to receive 40% off unlimited access through the Vantage subscription. When an asteroid landed on the Yucatan peninsula 66 million years ago, it turned our planet into a … | Continue reading
Have you ever wondered whether there’s more to reality than what we can see, perceive, detect, or otherwise observe? One of the most intriguing but speculative ideas of 20th and 21st century physics is the notion that our Universe, which seems to consist of three spatial and one … | Continue reading
At the end of the Cold War, many thinkers optimistically predicted that globalization would cause global societies’ social values to converge around liberal notions of personal rights and freedoms. Since then, technology has made the Earth “smaller” than ever. Global trade delive … | Continue reading
There are tons of theories surrounding J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and, more broadly, the fictional world of Middle-Earth in which the books take place. One of these theories is that Middle-Earth is actually not a fictional world at all, but our own Earth in prehistori … | Continue reading
About fifteen years ago, I had what I’ll charitably call a crisis of confidence. After spending years successfully climbing the corporate ladder, I hit a wall. Hard. I had been on a pretty awesome professional trajectory for more than two decades, which included being named the y … | Continue reading
In our Universe, the laws of physics tell us all the possibilities for what’s allowed to conceivably exist, but only by actually observing, measuring, and experimenting with our Universe itself can we determine what’s truly real. In Einstein’s general relativity, one of the very … | Continue reading
There was no internet during the Enlightenment, but something surprisingly similar did exist in the 17th and 18th centuries. This was the Republic of Letters: a virtual, global community of scientists and intellectuals who exchanged information using the fastest technology availa … | Continue reading
This week, I have the pleasure of sharing with you my Q&A with Lisa Kaltenegger about her new book, Alien Earths: The New Science of Planet Hunting in the Cosmos. Lisa is a world-renowned astrobiologist and the Director of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University. Earlier t … | Continue reading
Evelyn went car shopping on a sunny summer day and drove off the lot in a new convertible. Sure, the payments were more than she had budgeted for, but the condition was mint, and it was nice to feel the wind in her hair. Thing is, Evelyn lives in Seattle, and these days, she’s no … | Continue reading
Today, it’s now 13.8 billion years since the Big Bang occurred. Our observable Universe extends for 46.1 billion light-years in all directions, and is made of: 68% dark energy, 27% dark matter, 4.9% normal (atom-based) matter, 0.09% neutrinos, and 0.01% radiation, with no hint of … | Continue reading
People across the world, and the political spectrum, underestimate levels of support for climate action. This “perception gap” matters. Governments will change policy if they think they have strong public backing. Companies need to know that consumers want to see low-carbon produ … | Continue reading
Quantum mechanics is simultaneously our most powerful and weirdest scientific theory. It’s powerful because it offers exquisite control over the nanoworld of molecular, atomic, and subatomic phenomena. It’s weird because, while we have a complete mathematical formalism, we physic … | Continue reading
Look toward Sagittarius. Beyond lies the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ): the cold, dusty heart of our Milky Way. The CMZ contains 60 million solar masses’ worth of particles at -432 degrees Fahrenheit (-258°C). This dust is the stuff from which planets and stars are built — a proce … | Continue reading
It’s hard enough to give candid feedback to a friend or subordinate. Giving it to your boss is one of the most difficult things to do—and can get you booted if you botch it. Why it matters. Very few of us make it through life without running into a moronic, mushy, or mediocre man … | Continue reading
In theory, everything that exists in the physical Universe is dependent only on the same fundamental entities and interactions that we find by splitting matter apart down to the smallest possible scales. Living creatures can be divided into cells; cells themselves are composed of … | Continue reading
In the late 1970s, a team of karate-loving physicists decided to perform an experiment inspired by their collective passion for martial arts. The group was made up of physicist Michael Feld, a brown belt who liked to illustrate the physics of karate via live demonstrations to his … | Continue reading
In 2015, a high school student from Texas named Ahmed Mohamed was taken into custody after a teacher mistook his homemade clock for an explosive. This event, however bizarre, was not unprecedented. Two years earlier, residents of Tyler — again in Texas — were evacuated from their … | Continue reading
In 1978, Dan White murdered San Francisco city Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. Of this, there was no doubt. White had turned himself in, then tearfully and remorsefully confessed to shooting each of the men — his former colleagues — multiple times. At White’s 197 … | Continue reading
Explaining our disposition to work has two major dimensions. However, neither is widely understood or practiced. Many organizations seem perplexed or even agnostic about employee motivation. For companies genuinely intent on understanding how to make their workplaces better, who … | Continue reading
Join physicist Sean Carroll in a thought-provoking exploration of how life emerges in a universe governed by the second law of thermodynamics, which dictates an inevitable increase in disorder. This video delves into the intriguing contradiction between the universe’s natural pro … | Continue reading
When it comes to the Universe, it’s easy to make the incorrect assumption that what we see is an accurate reflection of all that’s out there. Certainly, what we observe to be out there really is present, but there’s always the possibility that there’s far more out there that’s un … | Continue reading
The river known today as the Adige, the second-longest in Italy, flows south and then east from the Alps to the Adriatic. As it travels around hills and through flatlands, the river meanders widely, sometimes nearly looping back on itself. The city of Verona took root and grew ar … | Continue reading
In an attempt to study the spine, scientists in Portugal accidentally created a mouse embryo with an extra pair of hind legs, where its genitals should be — and the strange turn of events could improve our understanding of human embryo development, metastatic cancer, and more. Wh … | Continue reading
Satellite internet startup Astranis is on a mission to help everyone in the world get online — and it just unveiled the satellite that could be the key to its success. The digital divide: An internet connection means access to jobs, education, entertainment, and more, but nearly … | Continue reading